Iraqi Leader, in Frantic Flight, Eluded U.S. Strikes

Saddam Hussein turned to his sons. as American troops were fanning out across Baghdad. "We are leaving now," he said.

Mr. Hussein, the Iraqi leader, was determined to make his escape before more checkpoints were set up around the capital. He had not anticipated the fall of the city, and his plan was simple: drive west toward Ramadi, where there were few United States forces.

In an examination of Iraq's military strategy, the United States Joint Forces Command prepared a day-by-day reconstruction of Mr. Hussein's movements, which shows that his escape was desperate and improvised. The study also indicates that American intelligence knew little about his whereabouts during the early part of the war and that Mr. Hussein was nowhere near the site of two failed bombing raids intended to kill him.

For Mr. Hussein, the first strike was a surprise. Relying on Central Intelligence Agency intelligence, President Bush ordered a March 19 bombing at the Dora Farms complex southwest of Baghdad. A C.I.A. operative had reported that Mr. Hussein was in an underground bunker there, and Mr. Bush hoped to end the war with one blow.

Two F-117 Stealth fighters dropped bunker-busting bombs on the site, while warships fired nearly 40 cruise missiles. The fighters scored a direct hit, and for a while American officials believed that Mr. Hussein was wounded or dead. But the Iraqi leader was not at Dora Farms and had not visited it since 1995, according to statements made to American interrogators by Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Mr. Hussein's personal secretary. The airstrike nonetheless appeared to rattle Mr. Hussein. After the attack, he arrived at Mr. Mahmud's home. The two men went to a safe house in Baghdad so the Iraqi leader could watch the international news reports and draft a statement to the Iraqi people.

After an Iraqi man with thick glasses read the televised speech, American officials speculated that he was a double. In fact, it was Mr. Hussein, according to the secretary's account. Typically, large text was printed on cue cards for him, but no printer was available and he needed glasses to read his writing. The tape was sent to the Information Ministry for broadcast.

For the next several weeks, Mr. Hussein moved among a network of safe houses. The United States bombed military command sites in the capital, but Mr. Hussein stayed in civilian neighborhoods. The United States never came close to killing him. "Most of the leadership strikes were offset from where Saddam stayed during the war, denying use of government buildings, but not threatening his life," the classified study says.

The Americans made a final attempt to kill Mr. Hussein on April 7 after the C.I.A. was tipped that he was in a safe house near a restaurant in Baghdad's Mansour district. A B-1 bomber dropped four 2,000-pound bombs. The blast killed 18 innocent Iraqis, according to Human Rights Watch. "Saddam was not in the targeted area at the time of the attack," the Joint Forces Command study notes. Mr. Hussein did have a close call. Early on April 7, he happened to be in a safe house one and a half miles from the route taken by United States troops on their second "Thunder Run" into Baghdad. Two days later, his situation was desperate. Army troops had moved into the western part of the city and marines were moving into the eastern part. He appeared before supporters in Baghdad. But after his convoy encountered American armored vehicles, Mr. Hussein and his aides were frantic, and forced their way into a Baghdad residence. As American troops searched, he hid there until morning.

Early on April 10, he decided to flee to Ramadi with his two sons and Mr. Mahmud, according to the account that Mr. Mahmud provided after American troops captured him. Earlier, Mr. Hussein thought that the main American attack might come from Jordan, but by now it was clear to the Iraqis that the United States did not have substantial troops in the west. The escape soon became an ordeal. That night, the Americans bombed a building next to a Ramadi house where he was hiding. Alarmed, Mr. Hussein, his sons and Mr. Mahmud got in their cars and drove toward Hit, spending the night in palm grove outside town.

The next morning Mr. Hussein decided they should split up to minimize the chances of capture. Qusay Hussein, Uday Hussein and Mr. Mahmud made their way to Damascus, Syria, according to a map of their journey in the Joint Forces Command report. Mr. Hussein's sons were apparently too hot for the Syrians to handle. The brothers went back to Iraq, eventually reaching Tikrit and Mosul, where American troops killed them in July 2003.

Mr. Hussein's first stop was Hit. In December 2003, American forces captured the unshaven Iraqi leader in a spider hole near Tikrit. On the wall of the dank hide-out was a poster of Noah's Ark; on the floor was a beat-up suitcase filled with clothes and a heart-shaped clock.